Kitchen days on the cooking course will naturally start with a good breakfast, in your hotel or at a local breakfast cafe Beijing style. On alternating days we are up early to shop at the fascinating local markets for some of the day's ingredients. Once in our authentic, fully equipped kitchen, our award winning, five star chef awaits you. At custom-designed, individual stations you'll prepare delectable regional dishes under the expert guidance of our chefs. With you will be our specially trained guides as translators and tutors to reveal and demystify the myriad distinct regional fare of this great nation. All the recipes plus notes on the regional culinary and cultural details from the morning are available to you. You'll savor your morning's work in our dining room, accompanied of course by rice and fine Chinese teas.

Your daily menu will mirror a typical lunch for the Chinese; based around one particular regional style of cooking. We'll shop for one vegetable dish, two main dishes and also the all important soup. The preparation, timing and cooking will be lovingly presented by our ever enthusiastic chefs and you'll have plenty of opportunity to practice their unique methods. As is customary here in China, we emphasize seasonal and local ingredients and use traditional recipes and methods. With more than five thousand years of culture and cuisine going hand in hand, the Chinese are rightly proud of their food.

The afternoons are given over to the breathtaking sights of Beijing; no trip to the Chinese capital would be complete without them. At your disposal for all these excursions will be your own luxurious transport, chauffeur and our specialist guide. Evenings are for sheer gastronomic hedonism, we will echo the particular regional cuisine of that morning, only now you'll be cooked for! We have selected only the best of the capital's thousands of restaurants. With so much to see, do, eat and enjoy, we're sure you'll be as enthusiastic about this vibrant metropolis and its unabashedly flamboyant food culture as we are.

For the non kitchen days, we have an essential itinerary of day trips and further culinary indulgence. Or if you prefer, do your own thing, rest, walk the historic neighborhoods or sit and people watch in one of the many elaborate and exotic parks around the city. Anything is possible, we are always happy to listen and oblige.